Emoji House

About

Emoji House refers to a property in Manhattan Beach, California, which has been painted by a muralist to feature two emoji faces on the front of the house. One neighbor claims that the property was painted in response to her complaint about the owner facilitating short-term rentals illegally, as the custom emojis features eyelashes like her own and directly faces her own property. The story was shared in August 2019 on Twitter which led users to weigh in on the matter.

Origin

On May 31st, 2019, Artist Z the Art^[1] posted a photo of his mural on a Manhattan Beach house calling the house the Emoji House (shown below). The image received over 400 likes in a month. The caption originally posted read: "

"Are your neighbors constantly ratting you out? Have they cost you thousands in fines? Have you wanted to tell them off lately? Why risk a case, when you can hire me to paint them a pretty message? No verbal confrontations, speedy turnaround, open to photorealism and custom emojis. Hit the dm for a free quote today. #Manhattanbeach #eyelashextensions #beachfrontproperty #artcommission and #exteriordesign."

Spread

On August 1st, 2019, EasyReaderNews^[3] published a story about a neighborhood dispute surrounding the house. The neighbor interviewed claim that Kathyrn Kidd, the owner of the Emoji House, was warned about the illegality of short-term rentals in Manhattan Beach but listed the property on Airbnb anyways. She received a $4,000 dollar fine after complaints. One neighbor who has eyelash extensions claimed to have been targeted when Kidd decided to cover the front of her property in emoji faces with added eyelash extension. When asked by EasyReaderNews, Kidd said,

“The artist is kind of a friend of mine. Instead of everybody being so gloomy, always so depressed, always in other people’s business, I just wanted to send a message to be happy, be colorful, be positive, and enjoy. Everything doesn’t have to be gray. It can be full of colors. Life is full of rainbows. I get tired of looking at gloomy buildings so I do something that makes me smile and probably makes someone else smile, too. That was my inspiration.”

On August 3rd, the mural artist @ztheart_^[2] tweeted, "A 3 hour gig gone head line news… wasn't expecting that. Well if anyone needs emojis or anything other large scale walls painted I'm here hit the Dm. #fox11 #ktla5 #emojiwar #emojiwars #emokihouse #Manhattanbeach" (shown below). The tweet gained over 1,200 likes and 100 retweets in four days.

On August 6th, various Twitter user reacted by reposting the story and weighing in on the matter. Twitter user @alexalucina reposted the story with the caption, "This house is like: 🤪🤐 The neighbors are like: 😡⁉️ And the city is like: 😳😬" and @bob323la replied with a video edit of the house (shown below). The Manhattan Beach Planning Commission is deciding on how to proceed with the matter on August 6th.^[4]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References